Movies that lots of people love but which I love to hate. You can play too. I have come up with five so far but feel this list is going to expand in future posts. Each title has to include an alternative choice of your preference, an alternative to the popularly loved movie that you hate.
So here are the first five:
1. Good Will Hunting
As much as there is going for it in the relationship between Williams and Damon, I just hate the humanism of this film. I hate how the math problems, the world of numbers, are not detailed even just a little. I hate the inexplicable scenes like the friend jerking off in the baseball glove and Affleck covering one of Damon's interviews and a bunch of others scenes. My alternative choice: Searching for Bobby Fischer - the best boy genius movie of all time.
2. The Spider Man movies
Don't get me wrong; I do kind of like them (except for the third) because of Sam Raimi's direction, but not enough. There's something sterile about them. I don't like Toby Maguire or Kirsten Dunst. I don't like the scenes in which May gives her wise lectures to Peter. And the second Spider Man…it wasn't that great. My alternative choice: Darkman
3. Titanic
You knew this one would be on here. In the words of my friend Bryan: as soon as I saw Leonardo Dicaprio in the back seat with Winslet and crying on top of her, he was irredeemable from that point on. My alternative choice: Big
4. Batman: The Dark Knight
I confess I made myself like this movie when I saw it in the theater. Then I watched it on dvd. Yikes. This film is so ludicrously stupid it beggars description. Scene to scene, how the Joker gets from one locale to another and how he manages to set everything up the way he does (getting himself in with the police officers to assassinate Gordon to planting someone with explosives in his belly and hijacking the two ferries and on and on) is stupid even for a comic book movie, especially for one that has such pretensions of seriousness. My alternative choice: Either the first Batman (not Burton's) or The Phantom or The Shadow. Tough to come up with an alternative for this one.
5. The Shawshank Redemption
Kidding, kidding, kidding. Relax.
The real 5. E.T.
I remember the talk about E.T. when I was a kid. And I remember one of my older sisters taking me and my brothers to go see it at the theater. And I vaguely remember thinking to myself that this was the most boring thing I had ever seen. Okay, the bike ride escapade at the end is cool. And you know, I still don't think this movie is all that great. My alternative choice: The Goonies - or if you want the alternative to have to do with aliens, then Explorers (minus the aliens)
4 comments:
+JMJ+
I'd steal this for a meme (and maybe adapt it to "Women in Horror" Month, to get even more Horror Blogger credit!) . . . but at the moment I'd rather respond to you on your own ground. =)
On #1: I saw this for the first and only time the year it came out and now I have only one thing to say . . . So that is what was going on with the baseball glove! =S
On #2: You'll probably cringe at this: I made all my students watch Spider-man 2 in English class.
On #3: Leo's bits don't age well, do they? Cameron's script is horrible, too. When I caught it again a few years ago, I couldn't believe the tripe Winslet was spouting.
On #4: I haven't seen either of the new Batman movies!
On #5: E.T. never did anything for me, either. I have warmer memories of Mac and Me (which is, by all standards, clearly the inferior film). I totally agree about The Goonies, though! =D
I'll admit, if I was to repent of any of these choices it would be Spider-man 2. Hands down, the movie is very well made and loaded with Christian morals and symbolism. And I did enjoy it very much when I first saw it. No, that you would make your English students watch it doesn't make me cringe at all; actually I think that's kind of awesome! We need more English teachers like you. There are some who would inflict The English Patient or some such thing on their students if they could...(I hope you didn't make them watch The English Patient)
I find I can't get to liking Leo in Scorcese's films either (and Scorcese is another topic altogether). He reminds me of that guy from Silver Spoons trying to toughen himself up too much on NYPD Blue.
Mac and Me! I never saw it, but remember seeing images of the film. You got to love those 80's spin-offs.
Long live Chunk!
+JMJ+
I didn't even make myself watch The English Patient!
Movies I Inflicted on My Hapless Pupils:
1) Spider-man 2
2) The Empire Strikes Back
3) The Breakfast Club
4) Apocalypto
5) Dreams (Kurosawa)
6) Interview with the Vampire
That's good to hear about The English Patient!
And that's one fine list. Though I have not yet seen Interview with the Vampire.
I really liked Dreams. I did a short post on it not too long ago:
http://spikeisbest.blogspot.com/2009/10/kurosawas-dreams.html
Post a Comment